LIBRARY 

OF   THK 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

OIRT  OP" 


Received 
Accession  No.  <-Z,/7*   Class  No. 


7 


Compliments  of 

THOMAS  WILLING  BALCH 

1412  Spruce  Street 
Philadelphia 


Vflf  t 


ALSACE  AND  LORRAINE 


.-^j»  « 

* 


Hit  1 


TJJIVJ          7} 
V%I? 


SOME   FACTS   ABOUT 


ALSACE  AND  LORRAINE 


A  PAPER  READ  BEFORE 


THE 


GEOGRAPHICAL  CLUB  OF  PHILADELPHIA 


JANUARY  2,    1895 


- 

7} 

iu-oi 

THOMAS  WILLING  BALCH 


BULLETIN 

OF  THE 

GEOGRAPHICAL  CLUB 

OF  PHILADELPHIA 

VOL.  I  MARCH,  1895  No.  4 

SOME   FACTS  ABOUT  ALSACE  AND  LORRAINE.1 

THOMAS  WILLING  BALCH,  A.  B.,  HARVARD  UNIVERSITY. 
(Read  before  the  Geographical  Club,    January  2,  1895.) 

Of  international  questions  that  at  present  threaten  the  peace 
and  prosperity  of  a  large  portion  of  the  world,  one  of  the  most  in- 
teresting and  important  is  that  of  Alsace  and  Lorraine.  For,  as 
we  look  along  the  corridors  of  the  history  of  those  fair  provinces, 
we  see  many  of  the  great  sovereigns,  generals,  statesmen  and 
conquerors  of  the  world  pass  to  and  fro  before  us.  Every  one 
who  has  read  "  De  Bello  Gallico  "  knows  of  Caesar  and  his  bridge 
across  the  Rhine.  Of  other  great  men  connected  with  Alsace 
and  Lorraine  we  easily  evoke  from  the  pictures  in  our  memory 
Charles  the  Fifth,  Richelieu,  Louis  the  Fourteenth  and  Turenne, 
Von  Moltke  and  Bismarck.  And  for  us  Anglo-Saxons  it  is 
worth  noting  that  it  was  along  the  line  of  the  Vosges  Mountains 
that  the  advance  of  Roman  customs  and  of  the  Latin  tongue 
was  checked.  Some  one  has  said  that  "  The  retention  by 
Germany  of  Alsace  and  Lorraine  is  the  one  obstacle  to  the  per- 

1  Copyright,  1895,  by  T.  W.  Balch. 


126  Some  Facts  about  Alsace  and  Lorraine. 

manent  peace  of  Europe."  This  seems  an  extravagant  state- 
ment, but  certain  it  is  that  this  question  influences  every  move 
on  the  chess-board  of  European  politics,  and  many  of  them — such 
as  the  formation  of  the  Triple  Alliance  and  the  Cronstadt  demon- 
stration— are  direct  outcomes  of  it. 

In  October  of  1 890  I  passed  through  the  Reichsland*.  The 
impression  that  I  had  formed  of  the  country  and  its  inhabitants 
was,  that  it  was  a  land  originally  peopled  by  Germans  that  France 
had  annexed,  piece  by  piece,  during  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries.  I  knew  that  the  Alsacians  in  the  course  of  several 
generations  had  become  so  attached  to  their  new  fatherland-^* 
especially  on  account  of  the  facilities  for  freer  trade,  and  the 
greater  freedom  of  the  individual,  which,  with  the  rest  of  the 
French,  they  obtained  by  the  Revolution  of  1789 — that  they  pro- 
tested in  1871  against  the  annexation  of  their  country  by  the 
Germans.  But  I  had  also  always  heard  that  the  Germans  an- 
nexed Alsace  and  Lorraine  on  the  theory  expressed  in  one  of 
their  war  songs : 

"  Was  ist  des  Deutschen  Vaterland  ? 

So  nenne  endlich  mir  das  Land  ! 

So  weit  die  Deutsche  Zunge  klingt 

Und  Gott  in  Himmel  Lieder  singt ! 

Das  soil  es  sein ! 

Das,  wackrer  Deutscher,  nenne  dein  !"8 

In  other  words,  so  long  as  there  were  German-speaking  peo- 
ple under  foreign  rule,  Barbarossa's  beard  had  not  yet  grown 
seven  times  round  the  stone  table  in  the  Knyphauser.  I  was 
also  under  the  impression  that  Alsace  and  Lorraine  had  been  part 
of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire,  and  that  several  of  the  cities  besides 
Strasbourg  had  been  free  cities  of  the  Empire.  I  believed  then, 

aThis  is  the  official  name  given  by  the  Germans  to  the  annexed  provinces  and  means 
"Land  of  the  Empire." 

3"  Des  Deutschen  Vaterland."   The  words  were  written  in  1813  by  Ernst  Moritz  Arndt 
and  the  music  in  1825  by  Gustav  Reichardt. 


Thomas  Willing  Balch.  127 

that  France's  only  claim  to  Alsace  and  Lorraine  was  that  she 
had  held  them  so  long  that  the  people  had  become  in  the  course 
of  time  Gallicized  so  completely  that,  though  they  still  spoke  the 
ancient  tongue  of  their  German  ancestors,  along  with  that  of  their 
new  country,  they  had  by  1870  become  completely  French  at 
heart. 

Accordingly,  as  I  journeyed  from  Bale  to  Strasbourg,  I  was 
not  surprised  at  what  I  heard  and  saw.  At  the  stations  and  in  the 
car  I  heard  German ;  everywhere  I  saw  German  names  and  Ger- 
man signs.  At  Mulhouse  a  number  of  people  got  in,  and  three  or 
four  of  them,  a  soldier  among  the  number,  exchanged  remarks 
about  the  weather,  the  state  of  the  crops,  et  cetera.  The  conversa- 
tion lapsed.  One  of  these  men,  who  had  been  talking,  and  sat 
immediately  opposite  to  the  soldier,  pulled  out  a  newspaper,  Le 
Petit  Journal  of  Paris.  Here,  then,  was  a  man  to  all  appearances  a 
German,  who  spoke  to  his  fellow-passengers  in  German,  reading  a 
newspaper  published  on  the  other  side  of  the  Vosges.  At  the 
station  before  reaching  Strasbourg  all  these  travelers  got  out, 
and  a  new  set  took  their  place.  The  newcomers  were  four — a 
father,  a  mother,  a  girl  of  about  sixteen  and  a  small  child  of  three 
or  four.  They  appeared,  like  all  the  others,  to  be  German.  The 
three  older  members  spoke  to  one  another  in  German,  but  when- 
ever they  addressed  a  word  to  the  little  child,  they  always  spoke 
in  French.  It  seemed  that  as  they  knew  two  languages,  they 
wished,  like  sensible  people,  to  teach  them  both  to  their  children. 
But  when  the  conductor  put  in  his  head  at  the  window  and  asked 
in  German  for  their  tickets,  they  at  once  spoke  to  him  in  French, 
and  made  him  answer  them  in  the  same  language.  At  the  station 
in  Strasbourg  all  the  railroad  employe's  were  busy  talking  Ger- 
man. There  was  a  poor  woman  at  a  news-stand  reading  to  her 
child  out  of  a  book.  A  German  officer  asked  her  in  German  for 
the  Kolnischer  Zeitung,  She  answered  in  the  same  language, 
and  sold  him  the  paper.  She  had  on  her  table  a  large  pile  of 


128  Some  Facts  about  Alsace  and  Lorraine. 

Le  Petit  Journal,  but  what  was  more  interesting  was  that  as 
she  opened  her  book  again  she  read  to  her  small  boy  in  French. 
The  cab  driver,  too,  who  drove  me  to  the  Pariserhof,  took  pains 
to  speak  in  French.  At  the  hotel  the  employes  were  all  Ger- 
mans by  birth,  and  when  I  spoke  to  them  in  their  own  language, 
much  to  my  astonishment,  they  did  not  once  try  to  speak  to  me 
in  English,  to  show  me,  according  to  the  custom  of  European 
waiters,  how  much  better  they  could  speak  my  own  tongue  than 
I  could  theirs.  On  the  contrary,  they  seemed  anxious  to  speak 
in  German,  as  if  to  emphasize  their  nationality.  The  next  day, 
walking  about  the  town,  on  every  side  I  saw  German  names — 
such  as  Schneider  and  Holzmann.  But  in  many  ways  it  was  easy 
to  see  that  at  heart  the  Strasbourgers  were  French.  For  instance, 
in  the  window  of  a  grocery  store  on  the  Broglieplatz 4 — all  display 
of  French  flags  is  rigorously  forbidden  in  the  Reichsland — the 
store-keeper,  whose  name  on  his  sign  was  thoroughly  German, 
had  put  in  a  conspicuous  place  some  white  candles,  between  two 
packages  of  red  ones,  wrapped  at  the  bottom  in  blue  paper.  It 
was  indeed  a  dull  man  who  did  not  see  at  once  the  tri-color. 

Strasbourg  has  two  monuments  that  have  an  interna- 
tional fame :  the  tomb  of  Marshal  Saxe  and  the  cathedral. 
The  monument  erected  to  the  memory  of  the  great  marshal  of 
Louis  the  Fifteenth  is  in  the  Evangelical  Church  of  St.  Thomas. 
It  is  made  of  white  marble,  and  shows  Death  beckoning  Maurice 
of  Saxe  into  the  tomb,  while  France  is  vainly  trying  to  hold 
him  back,  and  around  him  are  allegorical  figures  representing  the 
countries  whose  armies  he  had  defeated.  There  is  nothing  in 
the  church  that  can  challenge  comparison  with  the  tomb  in  any 
sense  and  divert  your  attention  from  it,  and,  probably  because  it 
is  quite  alone,  it  appears  to  be  finer  than  anything  in  Westmin- 
ster Abbey. 

The  famous  Cathedral  of  Strasbourg  stands  in  the  middle  of 

*  Named  after  a  French  marshal. 


OLD  HOUSE-STRASBOURG. 


Thomas  Willing  Balch.  129 

the  town.  It  is  built  in  part  in  the  German  Romanesque,  such 
as  we  see  along  the  Rhine,  as  at  Speyer  and  Worms ;  and  the 
remainder  is  built  in  the  Gothic  style,  showing  German  charac- 
teristics. Thus  this  great  edifice,  distinctly  a  German  building 
in  its  lines  and  decorations,  dating  from  1179  to  1439,  *s  addi- 
tional evidence  to  prove  that  the  Alsacians  are  of  German  origin. 
From  the  top  of  the  cathedral  tower  you  have  a  far-reaching 
view.  All  along  the  west  you  see  the  blue  slopes  of  the  Vosges 
running  north  and  south,  which  divide  the  country  off  from 
France ;  and  parallel  to  them,  but  a  little  to  the  east  of  Stras- 
bourg, that  great  artery  of  commerce,  the  Rhine,  which  com- 
mercially links  Alsace  with  Germany.  Between  the  mountains 
and  the  river  lies  the  plain  of  Alsace.  Beyond  the  Rhine,  far  to 
the  east,  lies  the  Black  Forest.  Looking  out  from  the  steeple 
over  the  city,  I  was  struck  with  its  resemblance  to  Nuremberg, 
as  the  city  of  Albrecht  Diirer  appears  from  the  tower  of  the  cas- 
tle where  the  ancestors  of  the  Hohenzollerns  used  to  hold  their 
sway.  The  color  of  the  roofs,  the  style  of  construction  of  the 
houses  of  old  Strasbourg,  were  almost  identical  with  those  of  the 
city  of  the  Meistersingers.  My  guide,  as  he  pointed  out  to  me 
the  objects  of  interest,  spoke  in  German,  and,  like  every  one  I 
had  seen,  he  looked  German.  By  and  by,  when  I  could  not 
quite  understand  something  he  was  explaining,  he  said  :  "  Per- 
haps you  can  understand  French  better  ?"  "  Yes,"  I  answered. 
That  was  the  end  of  German.  He  at  once  rattled  away  in 
French.  I  asked  him  whether  he  was  a  German  or  a  French- 
man. "  I  am  an  Alsacian,"  he  answered.  But  as  he  was  de- 
scribing the  bombardment  of  Strasbourg  and  pointing  out  where 
the  German  batteries  stood,  and  telling  how  bravely  General 
Uhrich  resisted,  just  after  saying  the  Germans  were  many  tens 
of  thousand  strong,  he  unconsciously  disclosed  his  national  feel- 
ing by  the  expression,  "  But  we,  militia,  police  and  all,  were  but 
seventeen  thousand."  He  then  told  me  how  only  German  was 


1 30  Some  Facts  about  Alsace  and  Lorraine. 

taught  in  the  schools,  and  how  all  the  well-to-do  French  had  left 
for  France. 

The  Germans  have  made  of  Strasbourg  a  great  intrenched 
camp,  with  outlying  forts.  They  are  doing  everything  they  can 
in  the  way  of  adding  to  the  importance  and  prosperity  of  Stras- 
bourg— as,  for  example,  building  an  imperial  palace,  construct- 
ing new  bridges,  laying  out  handsome  streets  in  the  unbuilt 
quarter,  rehabilitating  the  ancient  University — to  reconcile  the  in- 
habitants to  their  new  nationality.  In  1890  there  was  no  appar- 
ent sign  to  show  that  the  Alsacians  were  in  the  least  reconciled 
to  their  present  position.  To  see  a  people  speaking  among  them- 
selves the  language  of  their  fathers  and  yet  bitterly  opposing  by 
all  the  means  in  their  power  the  attempt  to  join  them  once  more 
with  that  nation  of  whom,  geographically  and  ethnologically, 
they  naturally  form  a  part,  seems  very  strange. 

"  Dis-moi  quel  est  ton  pays  : 
Est-ce  la  France  ou  1'Allemagne? 
C'est  un  pays  de  plaine  et  de  montagne, 
Que  les  vieux  Gaulois  ont  conquis 
Deux  mille  ans  avant  Charlemagne, 
Et  que  l'£tranger  nous  a  pris  ! 
C'est  la  vieille  terre  francaise 
De  Kteber,  dela  Marseillaise!"  5 

It  is  only  the  greater  freedom,  both  commercial  and  indi- 
vidual, that  the  Alsacians  gained  by  the  French  Revolution, 
that  appears  to  explain  their  attachment  to  France  and  resistance 
to  Germany. 

The  railroad  from  Strasbourg  to  Metz  crossed  the  Vosges. 
Outside  of  the  land  of  the  snow  mountains  I  have  seldom  taken 
a  more  beautiful  railroad  ride.  The  mountains  were  not  high, 
but  the  autumn  coloring  of  the  forests  was  charming,  and  the 
works  of  man  were  in  keeping  with  the  beauties  of  nature.  Now 

*  Erckmann-Chatrian. 


Thomas  Willing  Balch.  131 

and  then  there  were  the  ruins  of  a  feudal  castle  on  some  com- 
manding hilltop.  The  railroad,  part  of  the  time,  passed  close  to 
a  canal  that  connects  the  Rhine  with  the  Marne.  In  that  land, 
where  you  could  almost  smell  the  preparation  for  war  in  the  air, 
man  was  not  unmindful  of  the  economic  laws  of  nature  that 
govern  the  rainfall  and  the  depths  of  the  streams.  Not  only 
were  the  forests  cut  and  replanted  according  to  the  most  scien- 
tific knowledge,  but,  along  the  roadsides  and  the  banks  of  the 
canal,  trees  were  planted,  affording  shelter  to  both  man  and  beast 
against  the  summer  sun.  You  passed  by  the  station  at  which 
you  take  the  train  for  Phalsbourg,  the  town  made  so  famous  by 
Erckmann-Chatrian's  stories  of  the  great  Revolution  and  the 
Napoleonic  epic.  That  union  of  two  authors,  one  with  a  Ger- 
man, and  the  other  with  a  French,  name,  was  a  hint  of  the  dif- 
ference between  the  two  provinces.  For  from  there  on,  as  the 
train  moved  out  from  the  Vosges  Mountains  into  the  plain  of 
Lorraine,  there  was  a  complete  change  in  the  appearance  of  the 
people.  You  no  longer  saw  Germans,  but  Frenchmen ;  and  in 
the  villages  through  which  the  train  passed,  the  German  names 
had  given  place  to  French  ones.  At  the  station  at  Metz  the  em- 
ployes were  German ;  but  as  soon  as  you  crossed  the  old  forti- 
fications of  Vauban,  the  great  military  engineer  of  the  wars 
of  Louis  the  Fourteenth  and  Marlborough,  you  heard  French  on 
all  sides,  saw  French  men  and  women,  and  saw  French  names, 
such  as  Antoine  and  Jacques.  The  houses,  too,  looked  very 
different,  both  in  their  lines  and  their  coloring,  from  those 
of  Strasbourg.  The  names  of  the  streets  were  posted  up 
in  both  languages.  For  instance,  you  read  "  Konigsplatz," 
and  immediately  under  it  you  saw  "  Place  Royale."  So,  too, 
with  all  official  announcements.  On  the  right  hand  you 
read  the  word,  "  Notiz,"  with  the  text  underneath  in  the  old 
Gothic  characters,  while  alongside  there  was  an  "  Avis," 
with  the  text  below  in  French.  It  was  hardly  worth  while 


132  Some  Facts  about  Alsace  and  Lorraine. 

to  ask  the  reason  for  this  use  of  French ;  it  was  easy  to  see 
that  while  a  German  race  inhabited  Strasbourg,  a  French 
people  lived  in  Metz.  At  the  hotel,  too — Grand  Hotel  de 
Metz — ryou  noticed  a  great  difference  from  the  Pariserhof  of 
Strasbourg.  The  proprietor  was  a  Latin,  not  a  Teuton,  and, 
excepting  the  waiters  in  the  dining-room,  the  employes  were 
French.  There  is  on  the  Esplanade  a  monument  to  the  most 
famous  of  Napoleon's  marshals — Ney.  Near  the  cathedral,  on 
the  Place  d'Armes,  there  stands  an  old  statue  of  Marshal  Fa- 
bert,  Governor  of  Metz  in  the  time  of  Charles  the  Fifth.  There 
is  a  fine  cathedral  at  Metz.  It  is,  I  think,  more  imposing  and 
graceful  than  that  of  Strasbourg.  It  is  totally  different  from  any 
church  in  Germany.  It  was  begun  in  the  thirteenth  century  and 
finished  in  the  sixteenth,  and  belongs  to  the  decadence  of  the 
Gothic  style.  Without  being  as  fine,  it  is  distinctly  in  the  Gothic 
style  that  prevailed  in  the  He  de  France  and  adjoining  provinces. 
The  difference  between  the  cathedrals  of  Strasbourg  and  Metz  is 
one  of  the  best  illustrations  of  the  difference  of  the  people  in 
the  two  provinces.  For,  during  the  Middle  Ages,  men  of  one 
nation  could  not  build  as  those  of  another ;  Germans  could  not 
build  as  Frenchmen,  nor  Frenchmen  as  Germans.  Not  only  that, 
but  even  the  men  of  one  century  could  not  build  in  the  same 
style  that  their  countrymen  worked  in  a  hundred  or  a  hundred 
and  fifty  years  before  them.  The  architecture  of  Europe,  from 
the  year  one  thousand  to  the  Renaissance,  first  developed  into 
what  was  known  in  England  as  the  Norman  style,  and  on  the 
continent  as  the  Romanesque.  That  was  followed  by  the  Pointed 
style  in  England,  and  the  Gothic  in  the  continental  countries,  the 
best  and  noblest  development  of  which  was  in  the  free  communes 
of  the  north  of  France.  Indeed,  I  believe,  that,  barring  English- 
men, most  people  are  agreed  that  the  great  Gothic  churches  of 
Amiens,  Reims,  Paris,  Chartres  and  Beauvais  are  the  finest  struct- 
ures that  have  been  built  since  the  era  when  the  Greeks  built 


O 


O 


Thomas  Willing  Balch.  133 

the  Parthenon.  But,  until  well  towards  the  Renaissance,  what- 
ever the  style,  the  work  of  a  race  is  clearly  shown  in  the  mode  of 
construction ;  nay,  even  the  people  of  a  shire  or  province  showed 
in  their  work  their  local  characteristics.  The  difference  between 
the  cathedrals  of  Strasbourg  and  Metz — one  of  German  construc- 
tion, the  other  of  French — is  a  strong  proof,  I  think,  of  the 
original  difference  in  the  nationality  of  the  two  provinces. 

There  is  only  one  thing  to  show  that  the  southwestern  half  of 
the  part  of  Lorraine  that  the  Germans  annexed  in  1871  is  histor- 
ically a  German  land  ;  it  is  the  name  of  its  chief  town — Metz. 
That  is  a  German  name  ;  but  as  it  is*  surrounded  on  all  sides  by 
villages  with  French  names,  and  the  district  around  it  is  known 
to  the  inhabitants  as  "  le  pays  Messin,"  and  every  other  thing 
about  the  town,  except  the  garrison,  and  the  Germans  who  have 
settled  there  since  the  war,  are  French,  it  would  seem  to  be  a 
Teutonic  name  that  has  straggled  across  into  the  land  of  the 
Latins,  just  as  you  find  along  all  frontier  lines  a  mingling  of 
names.6 

Indeed,  the  only  claim  that  Lorraine  was  originally  a  Ger- 
man land  that  the  French  annexed  and  then  Gallicized,  is,  that 
Lorraine  came,  in  one  way  or  another,  probably  through  the 
marriages  of  some  kings  or  princes  with  the  heiresses  of  the 
Dukes  of  Lorraine,  to  be,  according  to  the  rules  of  the  feudal  law,  a 
part  of  the  Empire.  If  you  will  sail  down  the  Rhone  from  Lyons 
to  the  sea,  you  can  hear  the  people  speak  of  the  right  bank  as  the 
"  Royaume"  and  the  left  as  the  "  Empire."  Those  terms  have 
come  down  from  the  time  when  the  right  bank  belonged  to  the 
Kings  of  France,  and  the  left  to  the  Holy  Roman  Empire.  Yet 
no  one  would  say  that  the  people  of  the  left  bank  were  not 
Frenchmen  simply  because  their  land,  some  centuries  ago,  had 

6  Ittustrirte  Kriegs-Chronik :  Gedenkbuch  an  den  Deuhch-Franzosischen  Feldzug  von  1870- 
1871,  Leipzig,  1871,  pp.  43,  47  ;  Precis  de  la  Revolution  Frangaise,  par  J.  Michelet ;  Paris,  C. 
Marpon  et  E.  Flammarion.  Map  entitled  "  La  France  sous  La  Revolution  ;"  Atlas  de  Giog- 
raphie  Historique;  Paris  1894,  Hachette  et  Cie. ,  Carte  No.  46,  "  Limite  des  langues  en  Alsace- 
Lorraine,  d'apres  Pfister." 


134  Some  Facts  about  Alsace  and  Lorraine. 

formed  part  of  that  conglomeration  of  nations — the  Holy  Roman 
Empire,  of  which  Voltaire  said  that  "  it  was  neither  Holy,  Roman 
nor  an  Empire." 

The  environs  of  Metz  are  interesting.  It  is  surrounded  by 
a  number  of  high  hills  on  which  there  are  strong  forts.  You  are 
allowed  to  drive  about  in  parts  of  this  enclosure,  but  if  you 
should  happen  to  go  too  near  the  forts  without  a  permission 
card,  you  would  probably  spend  the  next  night  in  prison,  and 
what  would  then  happen  it  is  difficult  to  know.  Indeed,  at  table 
d'h6te,  I  heard  German  commercial  travelers  say  that,  without  a 
permission  card,  they  would^iot  dare  walk  in  the  country  about 
Metz,  even  at  a  great  distance  from  any  of  the  forts.  One  of  the 
places  that  you  are  allowed  to  see  is  the  house  where  Marshal 
Bazaine  had  his  headquarters  during  the  war  of  1870-71.  It  is 
a  country  house  a  mile  or  two  outside  the  town,  prettily  situated 
among  some  trees  at  the  foot  of  one  of  the  high,  fort-crowned 
hills.  Near  Bazaine's  headquarters,  I  saw  a  sergeant  teaching 
some  raw  recruits  to  fire  from  behind  trees,  and  the  way  they 
did  their  work  was  truly  wonderful.  The  sergeant  went  from 
one  man  to  another,  showing  each  one  the  proper  position  for 
loading  and  firing.  But  no  sooner  did  he  move  on  to  the  next 
man  than  the  recruit  he  had  just  left  would  get  out  of  position 
and  assume  some  grotesque  attitude,  suggesting  that  he  was  try- 
ing to  break  the  tree,  or  perhaps  that  he  had  cramp  in  his  leg. 

From  the  top  of  the  Cathedral  of  Metz  you  have  a  more 
restricted  view  than  from  that  of  Strasbourg.  The  country  is 
much  more  hilly.  Metz  itself  is  in  a  level  valley,  with  high  hills 
around  it  that  command  the  surrounding  country,  the  fertile 
"  pays  Messin,"  as  the  inhabitants  call  it.  To  the  west  you  see 
the  village  of  Mars-la-Tour  and  the  Chaussee  of  Gravelotte, 
where  two  great  battles  were  fought  in  August,  1870;  and  to  the 
south  Pont-a-Mousson,  which  is  the  first  French  station  on 
the  road  to  Paris.  The  man  whom  I  found  at  the  top  of  the 


Thomas  Willing  Balch.  135 

tower,  where  the  Germans  have  a  signal  post,  when  he  learnt 
that  I  was  an  American,  said  :  "  Ah,  yes,  we  are  idiots  in  this 
part  of  the  world;  we  fight  while  you  Americans  get  our  money.'* 
His  remark  reminded  me  of  the  famous  telegram  that  King  Will- 
iam of  Prussia  was  said  to  have  sent  after  the  battle  of  Gravelotte 
to  Queen  Augusta  : 

"By  the  will  of  Heaven,  my  dear  Augusta, 
We've  had  another  awful  buster  ; 
Ten  thousand  Frenchmen  sent  below, 
Praise  God  from  whom  all  blessings  flow." 

You  can  observe  very  clearly  from  the  tower  of  the  Cathe- 
dral of  Strasbourg  how  the  town  started  and  slowly  developed 
to  its  present  size.  You  see  that  Strasbourg  was  originally  built 
on  an  island  formed  by  the  111  separating  into  two  channels. 
The  arms  of  the  river  were  a  natural  defense  for  the  inhabitants 
and  as  each  channel  was  narrower  than  the  united  streams,  it  was 
easier  to  cross  from  bank  to  bank.  In  consequence,  Strasbourg 
became  a  port  on  the  line  of  commerce  as  it  moved  up  and  down 
the  neighboring  Rhine.  Then  you  can  see  some  remnants  of  the 
old  walls  and  towers  of  the  Middle  Ages,  which  the  Strasbourg- 
ers  built  when  they  extended  their  city  to  both  sides  of  the  111. 
Again,  further  away,  there  are  parts  of  the  fortifications  of  Vau- 
ban,  which  made  Strasbourg  one  of  the  strong  places  of  France 
in  the  time  of  the  Old  Regime.  Much  further  out  you  see  the 
modern  enceinte  that  the  Germans  have  built,  and  in  the  far 
distance,  on  both  sides  of  the  Rhine,  the  detached  forts,  without 
which  no  place  is  now  considered  a  citadel  of  the  first  class. 

Metz  expanded  in  much  the  same  way.  It  was  built  on  a 
group  of  small  islands  in  the  Moselle,  and  became  a  mile-stone 
on  the  road  from  France  to  Germany  and  gradually  expanded  as 
it  grew,  first  in  commercial,  then  in  strategic,  importance.  Some 
of  its  old  mediaeval  fortifications  still  remain.  The  Porte  des 
Allemands,  a  castellated  gate  of  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  cen- 


1 36  Some  Facts  about  Alsace  and  Lorraine. 

tury,  still  stands  as  firm  as  when  Charles  the  Fifth  invested  the 
town  in  mid-winter. 

For  another  war  the  Germans  have  prepared  their  plans  for 
an  aggressive  campaign  against  France.  The  only  places  they 
have  fortified  on  a  great  scale  are  Strasbourg  and  Metz.  The 
former  is  an  intrenched  camp,  and  to-day,  owing  to  the  high  hills 
crowned  with  strong  forts  that  encircle  the  latter  town  and  dom- 
inate the  "  pays  Messin,"  Metz,  along  with  Belfort,  is  now,  next 
to  Paris,  the  strongest  fortress  in  the  world.  All  other  fortifica- 
tions in  the  Reichsland  the  Germans  have  dismantled.  Their 
idea  is  to  mobilize  and  advance  their  forces  so  quickly  that  the 
French  will  not  have  time  to  attack.  Behind  the  Reichsland 
there  is  a  strong  line  of  great  fortresses  running  from  Cologne  in 
the  north  to  Ulm  in  the  south,  which  would  serve  as  a  line  of  de- 
fense in  case  the  Germans  were  beaten  back  across  the  Rhine. 

The  French,  on  the  contrary,  have  placed  great  reliance  on 
fortifications.  The  frontier  line  that  was  agreed  to  by  the  treaty 
of  Frankfort  gave  the  Germans  a  decided  strategic  advantage. 
Metz  in  the  hands  of  France  was  a  great  bulwark  of  defense  on 
her  northeastern  frontier,  and  in  Strasbourg  she  held  the  key  that 
opened  the  door  for  an  attack  across  the  Rhine.  But  to-day, 
Strasbourg,  with  the  line  of  the  Vosges  Mountains,  affords  to 
Germany  ample  protection  against  a  French  attack,  and,  with 
Metz  in  her  hands  facing  the  open  plains  of  Lorraine,  she  holds, 
as  it  were,  a  sword  in  the  side  of  France.  Near  to  Switzerland, 
the  French  have  in  Belfort  a  place  naturally  of  great  strength.  It 
guards  the  natural  highway  from  France  into  Germany,  between 
the  Vosges  and  the  Jura  Mountains,  known  as  la  Trouee  de  Bel- 
fort,  But  from  there  to  the  Belgian  frontier  they  have  had  to 
build  up  an  artificial  line  of  defense.  Epinal,  Toul  and  Verdun 
they  have  turned  into  fortresses  of  the  first  class.  Then,  to 
strengthen  the  line  between  these  four  towns,  they  have  built  a 
chain  of  small  forts.  These  citadels  are  placed  at  such  a  distance 


Thomas  Willing  Balch.  137 

that,  except  in  the  country  from  Verdun  to  the  Belgian  frontier, 
and  the  few  miles  between  Epinal  and  Toul,  an  army  attempting 
to  enter  France  from  Germany  must  pass  under  the  fire  of  one  or 
two  forts.  To  the  north  of  Verdun  there  are  no  forts  and  be- 
tween Epinal  and  Toul  there  is  a  break  in  the  chain  of  defense ; 
but  behind  that  opening  the  French  have  built  a  great  intrenched 
camp  at  Neufchateau ;  and  it  is  generally  supposed  that  they  have 
left  these  gaps  as  traps  for  the  Germans  to  enter.  The  second 
French  line  of  defense  consists  of  the  fortresses  of  Besanfon, 
Dijon  and  Langres  to  the  south,  and  Laon,  Soissons  and  Reims 
to  the  north.  Again,  back  of  that,  Lyons,  Paris  and  Lille  form  a 
third  line. 

Military  men  have  argued  that  both  combatants  are  so 
strongly  posted  along  the  Alsace-Lorraine  frontier  that  it  will  be 
almost  impossible  for  either  side  to  make  a  direct  advance,  and 
that  one  or  the  other  might  be  tempted  to  make  a  flank  attack 
either  through  Switzerland  or  Belgium.  On  the  Swiss  side  the 
Jura  Mountains,  covered  with  Swiss  sharpshooters,  will  make  it 
difficult  to  turn  either  line  from  the  south.  Belgium,  however, 
is  not  so  well  protected  by  nature  as  the  small  Federal  Republic, 
but  she  has  fortified  a  number  of  important  points.  As  an  attack 
through  either  of  these  neutral  powers  would  at  once  bring  its 
army  into  the  field,  it  is  likely  that  neither  France  nor  Germany 
will  molest  them. 

It  has  once  or  twice  been  mooted  that  the  difficulty  might 
be  amicably  settled  by  Germany  returning  the  Reichsland,  or 
even  only  Metz  and  French-speaking  Lorraine,  to  France,  who 
in  return  would  give  hard  cash  or  some  of  her  colonial  posses- 
sions, or  both.  Admirably  suited  as  this  question  is  for  argument 
before  an  International  Court  of  Arbitration,  the  talk  of  France 
buying  back  the  whole  or  even  a  part  of  Alsace  and  Lorraine,  ex- 
cept at  the  point  of  the  bayonet,  seems  but  an  "  iridescent  dream." 

The  Alabama  and  the  Behring  Sea  cases  were  radically  dif- 


138  Some  Facts  about  Alsace  and  Lorraine. 

ferent  from  this  one.  In  both  those  disputes  the  claims  were 
rather  private  than  national  in  their  character ;  that  is  to  say, 
they  were  not  of  such  a  sort  that  the  national  position  and  pres- 
tige and  power  of  either  of  the  two  litigants  were  involved.  In 
neither  of  those  cases  was  the  possession  of  territory  at  issue,  nor 
were  those  disputes  legacies  left  by  bloody  and  bitter  wars  be- 
tween the  litigants.  In  this  case,  however,  the  possession  of 
Alsace  and  Lorraine,  with  their  rich  mineral  deposits  and  the 
strong  strategic  positions  of  Strasbourg  and  Metz,  gives  their 
possessor  an  immense  advantage  in  resources  and  position  for 
any  future  war. 

The  French  view  of  the  question  is  best  summed  up  in  a 
phrase  of  Gambetta:  "Ma  seule  ambition  est  d 'avoir  ma  statue 
a  Strasbourg."  The  French  will  be  satisfied,  for  some  time  at 
least,  with  nothing  less  than  the  recovery  of  both  provinces. 
They  are  not  likely  to  forget  soon  the  land  of  Kleber  and  Keller- 
mann,  nor  that  it  was  at  Strasbourg  that  Rouget  de  1'Isle  wrote 
the  "  Marseillaise." 

The  only  thing  that  would  induce  the  Germans  to  return 
the  whole  or  a  part  of  the  annexed  provinces  in  order  to  pacify 
the  French,  is  the  fear  of  that  powerful  people  that  has  extended 
its  sway  from  the  Baltic  to  the  Pacific,  from  the  Arctic  Sea  to 
the  Hindoo  Koosh.  And  they  have  good  reason  to  fear  that 
race,  for  all  the  signs  by  which  we  can  judge  such  movements  of 
race  expansion  as  those  that  have  gone  on  for  centuries  within 
the  Empire  of  the  Tzars,  show  that,  in  all  probability,  together 
with  the  Anglo-Saxons,  the  Latins,  and  some  of  the  Orientals, 
the  Russians  are  destined  to  divide  the  world. 

The  Germans  will  never  peacefully  give  up  Alsace  and 
Strasbourg,  as  they  are  necessary  for  their  security.  For,  as 
Bismarck  said  in  the  Reichstag,  with  Strasbourg  in  the  posses- 
sion of  France,  a  door  was  wide  open  for  a  French  attack  across 


Thomas  Willing  Balch.  139 

the  Rhine.7  Metz  and  Lorraine  the  Germans  annexed,  expressly 
because  Metz  was  so  placed  that  it  laid  bare  the  French  frontier. 
It  is  not  probable,  now  that  they  have  thoroughly  aroused  the 
hatred  of  the  French  against  themselves,  that  the  Germans  will 
weaken  their  present  frontier  because  the  inhabitants  of  half  of 
the  part  of  Lorraine  that  they  annexed  are  of  French  origin, 
especially  as  they  did  not  consider  the  feelings  of  the  people  of 
Lorraine,  but  their  own  interests,  when  they  took  that  province. 
It  was  the  intensity  of  German  national  feeling  that  rallied  the 
South  German  States  to  the  aid  of  Prussia,  and  subsequently 
demanded  for  their  protection  the  annexation  of  Alsace  and 
Strasbourg  and  part  of  Lorraine. 

There  are  other  forces  at  work,  however,  which  each  day 
.make  it  more  certain  that  the  status  quo  will  be  maintained.  One 
is  the  enormous  present  cost  of  war,  which  is  each  year  becom- 
ing greater.  Another  is  the  disproportion  in  the  population  be- 
tween Germany  and  France  that  is  increasing  every  day.  The 
reason  why  Germany  so  quickly  and  completely  defeated 
France  in  1870,  was,  that  Prussia,  under  the  skillful  leadership  of 
Bismarck  and  Von  Moltke,  was  thoroughly  prepared  for  that 
war,  while  France  was  utterly  disorganized.  The  French,  owing 
to  their  total  lack  of  organization,  in  vain  tried  to  advance  their 
forces  to  invade  Germany ;  and  it  was  not  until  after  the  proc- 
lamation of  the  Republic  that  the  French  were  able  to  show  that 
they  still  could  fight.  In  1870  the  Germans  were  only  slightly 
superior  in  numbers,  but  to-day  the  difference  in  their  favor  has 
largely  increased,  and  is  likely  to  increase  still  more,  and  we  may 
remember  the  dictum  of  the  greatest  general  of  modern  times  : 
"  Dieu  est  avec  les gros  battalions" 

A  great  number  of  French  left  Alsace  soon  after  the  war, 
while  many  Germans  settled  there,  and  this  movement  still  goes 
on.  For  example,  Belfort,  which  before  the  Franco-German 

7  Bismarck's  speech  of  the  2d  of  May,  1871. 


140  Some  Facts  about  Alsace  and  Lorraine. 

war  was  a  town  of  about  seven  thousand  people,  now  numbers 
over  twenty  thousand  inhabitants,  most  of  the  newcomers  having 
lived  before  the  war  in  Mulhouse.  As  they  left,  their  place  was 
filled  by  Germans.  But  it  is  not  only  in  the  Reichsland  that 
Germany  has  all  the  best  of  this  movement  of  races.  At  the  be- 
ginning of  the  Franco-German  war  France  had  thirty-eight  mil- 
lions inhabitants  and  Germany  forty-two.  Since  then  the  French, 
unlike  their  hardy  and  determined  cousins  on  the  banks  of  the 
Saint  Lawrence,  have  failed  to  increase,  while  the  Germans  have 
gained  in  numbers  until  they  now  number  six  millions  more 
than  they  did  in  1870.  If  this  increase  on  the  part  of  Germany 
continues  for  a  few  years  more,  it  will  settle  the  question,  as 
between  her  and  France  alone,  irrevocably  in  her  favor. 


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NOV 


1917 


'  8  1918  ':{ 


MAH  30  132* 
% 

APff  30  19ft 


20 


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1944 


IN  STACKS 

JUL181963 

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2 


